


things you knew all fall away

by uptillthree



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Angst, Auguste (Captive Prince) Lives, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Post-Canon, take what you will from that, this was titled in my docs as ‘auguste lives but sad’
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:08:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23392258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uptillthree/pseuds/uptillthree
Summary: “Your Majesty,” Jord says, “there was… a man demanding to see you. At the palace gates.”And then the doors open again, and both Damen and Laurent stand up in alarm as the figure of Auguste, long-dead, steps into the room, brandishing a sword. “Laurent,” the man says, dropping the sword guilelessly. “It’s you, brother—I feared you were lost to my memory—”“No,” Laurent says hoarsely, face white, and his hand snakes around the dagger on their side table and levels it at the man’s neck. “You’re dead.”
Relationships: Auguste & Laurent (Captive Prince), Damen/Laurent (Captive Prince)
Comments: 21
Kudos: 142





	1. the missing stone in the graveyard

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is short because its really more of a prologue, but hopefully the next ones will be a little bit longer! also im sorry if there are points in future chapters that dont fit with canon, i will 100% admit that i shifted storylines around to make this scenario possible and may have missed some key details.
> 
> kudos & comments r very appreciated!! & all chapter titles/fic title are from song lyrics by Stars which is a lot of what i was listening to while writing this

“Your Majesty,” Jord says, brave-faced after barging into their rooms, “there was… a man demanding to see you. At the palace gates.”

Laurent raises an eyebrow. Surely Jord knows that Damen practically demanded the council not to be disturbed today. “And is he particularly important? Do we know him?”

“I’m not certain—that is, I suppose you could say that—”

Watching Jord flounder in a way he’s never seen in all the man’s years of service, Laurent frowns. “Spit it out—”

And then the doors open again, and Laurent’s dearly-treasured rest is disturbed for the second time that morning, and both Damen and Laurent stand up in alarm as a man with Auguste’s face steps into the room, brandishing a sword.

“Laurent,” Auguste says. Or, not Auguste but this man, this man who looks exactly like his dead brother.

“Impossible,” Laurent says, or tries to. His voice comes out in a rasp, a whisper. 

“Laurent,” the man repeats. Jord has drawn his sword but the man has dropped his own sword guilelessly, hands reaching out to him. “It’s _you,_ brother, I thought—I feared you were lost to my memory, you’re—”

 _“No,”_ Laurent says hoarsely, and his hand snakes around the dagger on their side table and levels it at the man’s neck. “You’re _dead.”_ Dimly, he’s aware of Damen speaking, the other guards pouring into the room, his own shallow breaths, the tunneling of his vision, but he’s seeing everything as though underwater. “You’re a ghost, or a spirit, or some scheme—”

“I dreamt of you,” the man says, frantic. “In our home, in Vere—we’d race through the fields there on horseback, you—”

“I think,” Damen says, “it’s best that Laurent and I speak privately first.”

“It’s impossible,” Laurent whispers. “Damen, it’s impossible.”

“Laurent,” Damen says. “You saw him.” A hand rubs up and down on Laurent’s back. Slowly, Laurent reacquaints himself. They’re on the settee. His head is half-buried in Damen’s neck. His hands are shaking. He doesn’t have enough air and so his lungs are burning.

Laurent presses his palms together, forces himself to take a long, steady breath. “I must be going mad.”

Damen takes Laurent’s hands, kisses the knuckles. “Love, no. This isn’t a dream, and it’s not—he’s not some ghost. You know that. He likely fought through our entire guard to enter this room—he infiltrated the palace _single-handed—_ that in itself might be proof enough, Laurent!”

“Don’t. Don’t talk about him like—like it might be—”

Damen’s eyes are sad. “Like what? Like it could be your brother? Like it’s Auguste?”

Laurent closes his eyes. “It could be a plot. An enemy’s attempt to rattle me. It could be a spy that just looks like him.”

_“Laurent.”_

“Damen, _you killed him.”_

Damen falters, here, at the reminder of that. “I beat him,” he says softly, hesitantly. “And even then it was a close battle. But I wasn’t there for—after. I saw him fall; I didn’t see him buried. I don’t know what might’ve happened, or who could have—” 

_Who could have taken him, plotted against him._ But there was only one person. 

“I never knew him as you did,” Damen reminds him.

Laurent stares at the door the man left through. Even in his mind he refuses to call him Auguste. “He’s wearing a commoner’s clothes, for fuck’s sake.”

“Well,” Damen says, “I think that might just mean he’s come a very long way.” When Laurent finally pulls back to look at him, he continues: “I think you should speak to him.”

“Laurent,” the man says when Laurent enters. He’s been given a room not extravagant enough to be fit for a royal nor bare enough to be a cell. Jord must have no idea what to do with him.

Now that Laurent is here and mostly clear-headed, the sight of him is almost too much to bear. The strong jaw of his father, the high cheekbones of his mother, the blue eyes he shares with Laurent, the hair just a shade darker than his. Even in old, worn clothes, the man in front of him strides forward like a king, back straight and entirely focused. They’re almost of a height, and that surprises him more than anything else. At once his mind tells him _Auguste, it’s Auguste._ But it can’t be.

Laurent tries not to look him in the eyes, tries not to scrutinize his face for fear of having hope. “How?”

“I remembered you,” he says, standing, starting to smile. It’s not quite what Laurent asked. “In my sleep. You—you were a boy, around nine, and you were mad that I was letting you win on our races, and I was laughing because you just thought your pony was somehow _faster,_ and—” He clasps Laurent’s arms, and it isn’t proof, it _isn’t,_ but Laurent finds himself clasping back. “All I had was that memory, and you, and—” And he takes out something that nearly makes Laurent’s heart stop.

It’s his ring. _Auguste’s_ signet ring, Auguste, Crown Prince of Vere, Captain of the Army of Arles, the starburst crowned on sword and shield. 

Laurent hasn’t seen it in nearly a decade. The full weight of it in his shaking palm is like an assurance of its legitimacy, and he remembers Uncle’s fury years and years before, when they claimed Auguste’s signet ring could not be found, and it’s all Laurent can do not to shatter.

“Oh, stars,” Laurent says, and by the time he realizes what he’s doing he’s clinging to Auguste like when he was a child, arms around his neck and voice small and heart pounding in his chest. His face is wet with tears and he doesn’t remember when he started crying. “What happened? How did you do it? Auguste, _how?”_

The warmth of Auguste’s hands around him is a comfort that reminds him of Damen, but the long pause Auguste takes in answering rattles him. “Laurent, I don’t know what you speak of.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“Laurent, I—I don’t remember,” Auguste says. “I don’t remember anything else.”


	2. we won, or we think we did

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is a part of Laurent’s heart, the foolish child-like part, that feels betrayed. It keeps demanding: How can Auguste not remember? How can Auguste not know about the few years Laurent had had his brother, all the sword fighting lessons and the horseriding matches and the stories he read to Laurent before he slept? This piece of himself, this folly of his, it refuses to believe. Auguste can do anything, it insists. Auguste would never just forget about him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warnings for mention of laurent’s uncle and some explicit mentions of past abuse in a conversation between damen and laurent. 
> 
> (if you’d prefer not to read it comment and i can reply with a summary)

There is a part of Laurent’s heart, the foolish child-like part, that feels betrayed. It keeps demanding:  _ How can Auguste  _ not  _ remember? How can Auguste not know about the few years Laurent had had his brother, all the sword fighting lessons and the horseriding matches and the stories he read to Laurent before he slept?  _ This piece of himself, this folly of his, it refuses to believe.  _ Auguste can do anything,  _ it insists.  _ Auguste would never just forget about him. _

For a long time he just sits there, assuring himself that this is real. “I missed you,” he says, over and over again, unable to come up with anything else. There’s so much he’s always wanted to tell his brother, so many times he’s wanted him  _ back,  _ and now he’s here and Laurent’s goddamned  _ words  _ are gone, and all he can do is hold him. 

“I went looking for you,” Auguste answers him, over and over again, and Laurent doesn’t quite understand, but he lets it be. Some selfish snarl in him is asking  _ where have you been, what happened, why didn’t you come back sooner, I needed you, where have you been,  _ and Laurent quashes it down, ruthlessly.

When they’re both calmer, Laurent starts to see the lines of age on his brother’s face that he doesn’t remember being there, and how short his hair is—as short as it had been the night he’d cut it off for practicality before the war, like he hasn’t grown it out since, and again Laurent wonders.

Auguste answers his questions in a halting tone. He woke up in Patras, he says, in a physician’s house and with no recollection of his life. He’d been found half-buried just across the border, a collection of bruises and broken ribs and stab wounds. 

“What?” Laurent whispers, raising his head. “Wait—how many—how many wounds?”

Auguste looks at him, puzzled at his interest. “Arvid—the physician who found me—he said two of my ribs were broken, and I had three stab wounds and a head wound. The head wound was… the reason I couldn’t remember, obviously, but the deepest one, across my chest, was the deadliest.”

Laurent hardly breathes. Soundlessly he detaches himself from his brother. He presses his hands to his closed eyes and wills himself to think. 

Clearly the deadly wound Auguste is speaking of was from Damen, but the rest—it was Uncle. It’s always Uncle. 

It’s Laurent’s fault. Laurent forces himself to remember it. That day, most of Auguste’s guards had been protecting  _ Laurent,  _ under Auguste’s orders and against Father’s advice. Because of that, it had been Father’s and Uncle’s men surrounding Auguste when he fought Damianos. 

After, Uncle’s men must have found Auguste’s body. 

Uncle’s men had found Auguste’s body and found it breathing and done their best to ensure it soon wouldn’t be.

“Shit,” he says. He can hardly believe how Auguste survived, now. Here, with the past so open and changed, he remembers Uncle vividly, the heavy grip on his nape— _ Oh, my dear Laurent. It will be better for you not to see him, I think. You should rest— _ Laurent wants to  _ throw up. _

He remembers seeing Auguste’s body after the battle, that bloody wound blooming in his chest.  _ He lives yet, but he might not make it home. Laurent, let him rest, he will be well-cared for. _

_ Laurent, your brother passed in the night. _

There’s a hand on his arm. Laurent thinks it must have been there for a long time. “What do you need, Lu?” Auguste asks softly.

_ Lu. _ Laurent wants to cry. It’s a desperation that claws at his throat, a last straw snapping inside him, an exhaustion made worse by a name he has not been called since he was a child. 

But the work isn’t done, the story isn’t finished. Laurent lets himself lean into his brother’s side. “Tell me the rest.”

“At first I simply stayed there to recover,” Auguste says. “For the first few days, I couldn’t recall my own name. It took months for all my injuries to heal, and then I decided to stay to help Arvid with his clinic. I didn’t have anything to pay him back with, after all, and he was letting me stay at his home. 

“I had strange dreams, also. Nightmares. I didn’t remember anything, but I’d dream of the battle. Marlas, it must have been. It didn’t help—I knew that I was a soldier, but not who I was. It only plagued me. I’d wake up screaming. I asked Arvid what the nightmares could mean, but he was Patran and poor and didn’t really know much in the way of other countries’ politics. And I didn’t trust anyone else. 

“I had my ring—it had been kept on a chain in my boot—but I didn’t even know what it meant. I just… didn’t have anywhere else to go, and I needed to figure it out. So I stayed with Arvid for four years.”

The way he says it sets Laurent wondering. “Did you love him?”

Auguste looks startled. “I—maybe,” he admits. His eyes are almost mournful. “Maybe I could have. But—I don’t know. I knew I’d never be comfortable with living that… life, because I knew it wasn’t the one I had.”

“Where did you go, after?”

“I traveled to Vere because—well, because I could speak Veretian best, and apparently I muttered in Veretian when I slept. I figured I used to be a soldier, because of the nightmares. Arvid had taught me enough about medicinal herbs that I could get by selling spices and plants and medicines. But I…” Auguste sighed. “My memories were still scattered then, and I just stayed in Alier for a long time. I knew things were missing, but I couldn’t fill in the blanks.” 

“How… How did people not even recognize you?”

It’s perhaps a prying question, but it’s been bothering Laurent. Auguste had been  _ worshipped _ as the golden prince, and surely even years after his death someone would have noticed—

“I—well, I didn’t let them,” Auguste laughs uneasily. 

“Let them?”

“I told you before, I couldn’t trust anyone. The most vivid memory I had of my old life was… A battle. And I didn’t know who had tried to… Anyway, I hid my face most of the time. I lived alone, I covered my face, didn’t show anyone my ring. Didn’t talk to anyone more than I needed to.” Laurent thought of that, thought of Auguste spending all those years as alone as him. His chest hurt. 

“After a year and a half in Alier,” Auguste continues, “the dreams started changing. Our—our mother, was she… Was she Kemptian?”

“Yes,” Laurent says, and Auguste exhales a heavy breath. 

“I think I remembered her voice, she was… she was singing something Kemptian. So I started heading northwest, to Kempt. Her face is still… blurry, and I cannot remember anything of Father. I thought perhaps we lived in Vere but I could find my mother’s family in Kempt.”

Laurent shuts his eyes for a quiet second. He doesn’t need to ask to know that it would have been unsuccessful; Mother’s family had never approved of her marriage, had never quite warmed to Vere’s culture, and after she had died they had cut all contact. 

“How long did you stay there?” 

“Until last year, before I left to travel south again.” Laurent lets out a dismayed noise. “I remembered  _ you, _ sometimes, but you were so young in all of my memories it took me so long to realize… I wasn’t at all interested in the unification until I heard your name. That’s when it came back to me.”

“But you remember now?” Laurent asks. “You remember everything?”

It takes a beat for Auguste to answer. “I think I remember some of the important things,” he says carefully. “And I might remember more now that you’re here. But there are still blanks, and I’m not sure what still hasn’t returned. I  _ tried to find you,  _ I swear I did. But I remembered you mostly as a kid, and I didn’t think… I’m so sorry. I wish I could have come home sooner.”

It isn’t, none of it is—but Laurent tucks his head in Auguste’s shoulder and says, “It’s alright.”

Although Laurent has plenty of speculation, he’s still reaching, perhaps futilely, for some sort of proof. 

He knows exactly where to find it.

Since his uncle’s reign as Regent ended, Guion, upon request of his wife, has been spending the rest of his days in house arrest in one of his family’s residences, living not without comfort but certainly guarded day and night.

He would be dead if Laurent had his way. As it is, only Laurent’s pity for Loyse keeps him alive.

He’s surprised to see Laurent, much as he tries not to show it. “Your Majesty,” he bows, almost mocking. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

_ I wish you were dead. As it is, I need answers. _ “What do you know of the plot that killed my brother?”

“Plot? Why, you seem addled, my Lord,” Guion says. “Prince Auguste died in battle with the man you now choose to lay with, if I recall—”

Laurent’s hand slams down on the table. Guion shuts his mouth.

“Prince Auguste was beaten in battle, but he was taken from the battlefield alive,” Laurent snarls. “And afterwards? What do you know about that?”

Guion’s been staring at them with a calculating expression throughout this entire conversation, but now his teeth bare in a grin. To Laurent’s shock, he starts to laugh, cruel and mocking.

“Goodness,” Guion says, “How does it feel to realise you’ve still  _ lost,  _ Your Majesty?”

Before Laurent realizes it, he’s surging forward, his hands around Guion’s neck. “I’ll kill you,” he snarls, his voice a low rasp into the man’s ear, halfway to a breakdown. “Even your family will look upon you with disgust after this.  _ I’ll kill you.”  _ Guion’s gasping, scrabbling at Laurent’s grip. His face is still stretched wide in a smile. 

“Your head will roll,” Laurent continues. “It will be speared on the pikes of the palace walls and all the people will know of your disgrace. Your body will be given no proper burial, I’ll ensure it. That will be your end. You’ll burn. You’ll burn in whatever eternity lies after death.”

“Laurent,” Damen is saying, hands prying Laurent’s off. “Laurent, enough.  _ Enough.” _

Guion slides down the wall. “All those… years,” Guion says hoarsely, laughing quietly, an insane light in his eyes, “that you  _ mourned  _ him with your uncle… You never even—thought—why he wouldn’t let you… see the body? Why the casket… was kept shut?”

Laurent stumbles back, horrified. 

Guion’s laughter follows him out of the room.

Later that night, Laurent says, “I think I would have preferred that you killed him.”

“You don’t mean that,” Damen says immediately.

He’s right; Laurent doesn’t. But Guion’s words have rattled him, and Laurent finds himself in a dark mood for the first time in a long while. “At least he would have died with honor,” Laurent continues, hollow. “Not nearly murdered and left for dead and...”

“Laurent, Auguste fought your uncle’s treachery as you did, and he won. He found you, Laurent, he’s here now.”

“I wept over an empty casket,” Laurent says. “Can you believe that? Uncle must have laughed himself silly. Do you think he only kept me alive to fuck?”

“Laurent,” Damen says. “Don’t.”

“He must have. He planned to keep me alive just long enough to enjoy it and then he was going to dispose of me too. You know, now I’ve fucked both of my brother’s killers, can you believe?” He laughs, and Damen flinches at it. His hands are clammy, and he rubs his own arms for warmth that won’t come. He knows he’s rambling but he can’t seem to stop. It’s the only way for him to think when he gets like this, only in Damen’s company. “I’ve been wondering now—do you think he killed Maman? It was so long ago, I don’t even—the alliance with Kempt  _ crumbled  _ after she was gone, he might have been playing a longer game than I ever—but of course, Uncle  _ enjoys  _ being cruel. He was  _ so kind _ to me after Maman died, it’s—what if, if Maman  _ saw  _ something, and Uncle had to destroy evid—”

“Stop it.” Damen turns him around to meet his eyes, and the warmth is there, suddenly, in the form of Damen’s arms around him. “Laurent, _stop it._ It doesn’t help to think like that. I won’t let you hurt yourself like this.” Damen’s arms tighten. “The Regent is dead, my love, you know this. He can’t hurt you anymore.”

Laurent breathes in shakily and closes his eyes. “And do you think,” he says, “there will ever be a time where his ghost does not follow me?”

“There’s no ghost, Laurent,” Damen murmurs into his hair. “It’s only your brother.”


End file.
